Wikiality

“Wikiality” was a term I originally came across during The Colbert Report (a television show on Comedy Central) on a segment called “The Word.” This first aired in July 2006. The host, Stephen Colbert, commented on how we can create our own reality on Wikipedia and have that reality be accepted as being true presumably since the general public is so eager to accept the information found on Wikipedia. He also commented that if enough people believe this to be true, then it will be true. (http://broadband.thecomedynetwork.ca/?vid=16386)

Colbert asked the audience to go onto Wikipedia’s site and change Wikipedia to a reality we can all accept. In this case, it was changing information in regards to African elephants. He asked people to change the information to write that the African elephant population has tripled.

This resulted in Wikipedia shutting down that article because of all the inaccuracies being written there.

Colbert has even changed articles, then quoted the Wikipedia articles to show the accuracy of his information. He said that the "G" in Warren G. Harding, the 29th president of the United States, stands for "Gansta" and proceeded to show the Wikipedia article that showed this "fact" and thanked Wikipedia for the data (http://watch.thecomedynetwork.ca/the-colbert-report/best-of/#clip60819). This is why checking the citations are important when something seems "weird."

This was all done in jest, but it really pointed out the follies of author bias. If we, as authors, don’t believe something to be true (or false) and perpetuate that belief, then others reading it will come to believe it to be true as well. Isn’t this the case with people who deny the holocaust? We all know that this event happened. There is concrete evidence and proof of it in Europe. Survivors of it still exist and give firsthand accounts of their experiences and what they saw. But what will happen centuries from now and the whole event has become a story in a history book? Will people doubt the truthfulness of it because others doubt it now and spread their beliefs as being reality?

Wikipedia is a great learning tool, because it can be updated and changed instantaneously, but the question we should ask ourselves and teach our students is according to whose reality?